Farscape Epic RPG: In The Eye Of The Beholder
by Chant99
Summary: RPG Universe Story. In his early days aboard Moya, Berret discovers some hidden talents and his given name with Zhaan's help, and a image of a woman from his past who might have meant something to him back then. Chiana is not very pleased. No Forward.


Berret took a step back from the sheet of paper he had been drawing on and looked over the product of his labor for the last arn with a critical eye.

With Zhaan's help, he had discovered he'd had some latent talent for drawing and sketching, and given enough time, he could create renderings that were almost as skilled as the elder Delvian's. However, he couldn't produce them as quickly with the blurring speed and accuracy that the Priestess was able to do.

Zhaan had delighted in his new found talent, and had even spoken of teaching him to create spirit drawings at a somewhat slower speed, if he wished to learn.

However, Berret himself was nowhere near as excited about the skill, as he had no clue if it was a natural aptitude he had been born with, or a proficiency the microbe enhancement had given him.

He could see all to clearly where being able to draw by hand, things he'd seen or encountered, might come in handy for an assassin, and that somewhat damped his enthusiasm for the talent.

For the moment, the skill was serving his needs in another matter. He tried not to think about the origin of the ability, and even settled for just attempting to enjoy the act of simply creating something.

At this particular time, Berret had already sketched out several rough portraits of a strange woman that had surfaced in his memories lately. Zhaan and he had recently discovered her in a number of his disjointed recollections during Unity… and she seemed to be very important to his still mostly concealed past in some way.

This last drawing he had just nearly completed had been his first attempt at a more accurate rendering of the female. Her features seemed oddly both alien and familiar at the same time.

Zhaan had suggested that drawing several portraits of the strange woman might help him recover or unlock more portions of his past that she was connected to.

He privately half suspected the Priestess just wanted him to make more use of his new talent, but if sketching helped clear up some of the mystery concerning who he had once been, he would have taken to the task anyway… even if he had truly disliked using the skill.

Luckily for him… he had found that drawing was extraordinarily relaxing and pleasant.

He had gotten the impress from the flashes of images he had seen, that the woman was small of frame, just as was Chiana was. Most of the times when he saw her, it was from a height as if he were looking down at her, again – just as with the Nebari girl.

She had long very straight hair, longer and much straighter than even Aeryn's hair, but just as dark. Her eyes were the strangest feature of her. They were slightly slanted and very dark brown. As of yet, he'd never encountered a person in the Territories with eyes quite like hers… to the best of his knowledge.

At first, he had thought the oddity a trick of his damaged mind, but the Delvian had confirmed the memory was fairly accurate, with no distortion. Then he briefly considered that the shape of her eyes might be due to some genetic deformity, but the more he gazed at the drawings, the more he was sure her eyes were exactly as the female's heredity intended them to be. He had yet to show any of the finished portraits to Crichton, he suspected the human might be able to tell him something about the girl in them… if nothing more than if her race was an actual one on Earth.

Despite the odd eyes, Berret found her strangely beautiful and exotic. Even Zhaan had said she'd never quite seen anyone who looked like her, but she was near positive the strange woman was a memory from his home.

Berret touched the paper, oddly caressing the high cheekbones he had drawn, and feeling almost as if he should have been able to feel the contours of them as flesh and blood beneath his fingertips.

A deep part of him somehow understood he knew this face well. Looking upon the woman gave him a rare sensation, almost as if his heart wanted to skip a beat, the same feeling that he sometime got in those unguarded moments when he looked at Chiana.

He found himself wondering if he had possibly loved this woman in his former life, then he sadly wondered if she would recognize him as he was now, if they were ever to meet again?

In all the bits and pieces of memory visions he had seen her face in a range of emotions. He had seen her laughing and crying, concentrating deeply on some task, thoughtful and mischievous, with looks of pleasure and contentment… and even angry. The hardest to think about were the looks of adoration and love… because he somehow knew they had been meant for him. Or at least for the person he had been.

Then the thought again, if she were to encounter him that day as who he was now… would the looks of adoration and love die upon her face?

Strangely, he has only able to recall one instant in his recollections where she was actually speaking to him.

"Would you like more tea, Jared-san?" she asks over and over again in an oddly accented language, always showing that same bright smile that seem to steal his every breath away.

Somehow he knows the "san" word is not actually part of a name. It is nothing more than a custom she adheres too. Perhaps from her race or culture, he thinks, where others like her had the same strange eyes?

Her voice when he recalls it is light and musical… and that deep part of him aches to hear it and cannot get enough of replaying the vision over and over again in his mind.

A part of him wonders if this pain is worth trying to remember?

He reaches out once more to touch the paper with that memory of her voice still ringing in his mind.

And a new word comes unbidden to his lips before he realizes he has uttered anything at all.

"Yuriko," he whispers.

It's like magic, if he'd believed in that sort of thing, and he's sure that it's the strange woman's name that his unconscious mind has graced him with.

Or perhaps, has chosen to taunt him with?

His eyes tighten slightly in new sadness for an instant, and then he hears a light familiar footfall from behind him. He hurriedly withdraws his hand away from the image he had drawn, and it again takes on the form of only paper and graphite chalk in his perception. Still, he turns to face the person behind him, already knowing who it is… and finding himself feeling slightly guilty for no actual real reason.

"What are you drawing?" Chiana asks as she looks over his shoulder.

"Zhaan suggested I draw things from my memories to help in recalling my past. I'm drawing the woman I keep seeing in them," he told her honestly.

"The one who calls you, Jared?" the Nebari asked, her face going blank of all emotion as she inquired.

Berret nodded, and glanced back to his sketch.

Chiana now frowned slightly. "Do you think that's your real name?"

"Zhaan believes it is," the ex-Enforcer replied neutrally.

The gray girl's frown deepened even more at his obvious avoidance of her question.

"I asked if _you_ thought it was," she repeated stubbornly.

Berret almost sighed. He had discovered that the more he found out about his past life, the less Chiana had seemed to like it lately, especially after the woman in the drawing had started to repeatedly emerge. Crichton had claimed that it was because Chiana was becoming jealous about anything in his life that did not include her. Though, he did not understand why that should be? Everyone had a past of some sort, and he had taken no offense that Chiana had a past of her own before they had met.

He found his own lips tightening in a downward direction with that last thought. He had to admit that he did not enjoy hearing about Chiana's old lovers whenever she decided to tell her baldly adult-natured stories to whomever would listen… regardless of how shocking her audience found them.

Still, Crichton's advice had been to avoid talking about whatever he found out about his past that included this woman with Chiana, whenever possible. And to not even attempt as to figure out why this portion of his past life on Earth made Chiana so… irritated.

He had been successful up until then… for the most part.

Chiana could be very tenacious if her curiosity became aroused.

The Nebari was still watching him expectantly, waiting for a reply.

"Yes… I believe it is," he told her. There was no point in lying about it or attempting to redirected the question. The gray girl would only become more annoyed if he did.

Chiana tilted her head as she studied the drawing. Her lips eased up from their frown into a non-committal straight line. At times, she could also be good at covering her true feelings, but Berret knew that the strange Earth woman was a sore topic at any time with the Nebari.

"Who do you think she is?" she then asked a few microts later. Surprisingly, she seemed honestly curious now to Berret.

"I do not know."

"Are her eyes supposed to be crooked like that?"

"That is the way she looks to both Zhaan and I," answered Berret. "So I believe that is the natural way they are suppose to look."

"I wonder if having your eyes crooked like that would frell up your eyesight?" Chiana wondered out loud.

Berret found himself surprised once again; he had not considered that idea before then.

"I have no way of knowing," he admitted. "But I would have to assume nature would not allow such a defect to exist in a species for very long. So again, I would have to assume that her vision was at least on par with what is normal for a Earth human."

Chiana suddenly cut a slight grin, and the ex-Enforcer wondered if she had just set him up for one of her pranks or insults.

"Which means," the gray girl drawled, "Pretty gris-poor eyesight at any rate."

Berret had to give in on that one point.

"Perhaps," he said.

Chiana stepped back further to regard the sketches again, her gaze traveling from one to another for a few moments. Then the tiny grin on her face faded once more, as she turned serious again.

"Could she be your bond-mate?" she then asked.

"Bondmate?" Berret asked, he had never heard the term before.

The thief pursed her lips tightly for a few microts before explaining.

"Do you think she was your wife… lover… life-partner, whatever they call it on Erp?" she told him.

Something in her voice made him stop before answering, and look her over carefully for any of the tell-tale warnings he'd learned about the lithe girl. He didn't have to be told this would be a touchy subject with his friend. Although, he still couldn't understand why it should be.

He was already sure that Chiana would never want anyone like him for what she called a "bond-mate" or life partner. She'd spent her entire life running from people like him.

It would be beyond foolish for her to want that in her life now.

Still, Crichton's recommendation seemed the soundest to follow at the moment, so he stopped trying to figure females – especially Chiana – out for the time being.

"I do not know that either," he finally answered, and silently hoped that it was the correct response.

Chiana didn't seem to like that answer anymore than she would have if he had announced that the woman in his memories had indeed been his wife.

But, to the ex-assassin's relief, she turned away without seeming to become angry with him.

She gave the sketches one last look and nodded slightly to herself with a dismal hint of acceptance, before then turning away to head for the door.

"Well… if she is, she's still beautiful. Even with the weird eyes," she said quietly from the doorway, before completely exiting the room.

Astonished for the moment, Berret watched her go, wishing he had the courage to speak of the mixed feelings he'd had of late, but had been trying his best to bury.

The girl in the drawing may or may not exist; she may have even been a large part of a life that now belonged to someone else… a person who no longer was, in any case.

But the gray girl who had just left was indeed real, and had become the main reason he went on living even this life of terrible dreams and bloody nightmares.

She was that one aspect of beauty and grace that kept him hanging on for just one more day.

He looked back at the drawing he had created; the image had flowed from his fingers without him having to put much thought into what he had been doing. The girl in the picture was indeed striking and gorgeous.

But she wasn't real… at least not to the individual now known as Berret.

Berret returned his gaze after the gray girl, and he watched until he could not longer see her after she had rounded the corner of the corridor just outside the opened doorway. Even Chiana had also grudgingly admitted that the woman in the sketch was beautiful, and had said as much before taking her leave.

"So are you," he whispered to the pretty Nebari's now long departed back.

He glanced back at his work for a moment more, and then flipped to the next clean page in the sketchpad Zhaan had found from him. Picking up his stick of graphite chalk, he began to draw once more.

The features in this new drawing were much paler than the others, and the hair instead of being long, straight, and black, this time was wild, white, and bobbed short.

This image flowed from his fingers just as easy as all the others of the unknown Earth woman.

But the feeling he had with the new creation was just the same as before, the same heart skipping thrill.

Only this depiction was much more real to him than something he had only seen in a glimpse of forgotten memory.

Even if the subject of the new artwork was just as unobtainable.


End file.
